5 More Pro Tools MIDI Features Worth Knowing About

Mirrored MIDI Editing Works Across Tracks

Whilst Mirrored MIDI editing may be cool within a track to ensure loops are consistent, you can also use them across tracks if you want to use 2 synth bass sounds or stack drum sounds. Simply turn on the feature then a track copied to another will continue to mirror any edits made

Export MIDI

Right mouse click on the name of any MIDI track and you will see the “Export MIDI” feature. Now because Pro Tools uses real-time MIDI processing you will then get a dialogue box up asking if you want to export the original MIDI without any quantizing, transposing or other real time processing you may have done, or as you are hearing it - nice!

Show MIDI Editor

If you want to see you MIDI editor all the time rather than when you just open it (double click on the MIDI track for that when in clip mode) then simply hit this down arrow at the bottom of the Pro Tools Edit window.

Enable Note Chasing

Imagine you have a long string pad that starts at bar one and then lasts 8 bars, but you want to hear the sustain of that note if you start playing at bar 5. Enable note chasing and Pro Tools plays the note as if you had started playback from the start. Magic!

Drawing MIDI Data

If you drop down the arrow on the bottom left of any MIDI channel you’ll see options to chose any MIDI controller, use the little arrow at the end of the grey bar next to the word to choose. Then select the pencil tool and you can draw in things such as the velocity of hi-hats or a snare roll. I use it all the time.